Communal and Family Schedules

Communal Schedule

Monday through Friday

8h30 > Communal work begins 

Moisés and Yanni help Elisabeth
ring the bell for morning prayers

9h30 - 10h > Morning prayers, following the daily readings of the Roman Catholic Lectionary 

10h30ish > Rappel (literally "remember"): a bell rings to remind us to zoom out and actively enter into God's presence.  We take a minute or two to be still and silent wherever we are when it rings. 

11h30ish > Rappel 

12h30 - 13h > Silent meditation in the common room 

13h > Lunch and clean-up, in which everyone participates 

14h30 > Communal work resumes 

15h45 - 16h > Afternoon prayers following a schedule to pray from a Christian perspective alongside other seekers of God: 

• Monday - Hinduism 

• Tuesday - Islam 

• Wednesday - People who seek God without a named religion 

• Thursday - Buddhism, and religions of the east

• Friday -  Unity of the Christian church

16h30ish > Rappel

17h30ish > Rappel

18h > Communal work ends

Saturday

Morning: Farmer's Market in Audierne (one person runs l'Arche's stand, usually Benoit)

9h30 > Morning prayers alongside the Jews on Shabbat, in the format of the 15h45 weekday prayers (see above)

10h - 13h > Communal work 

19h > Communal meal (One Saturday per month, dubbed "family weekend", there is no communal meal.)

Sunday

Morning: Catholic Mass, rotating between several churches.  I hope to write a post soon about this, with photos of the churches & cathedrals we visit! 

Afternoon & Evening: Family time

Additions to the Communal Schedule

Monday

• Nico: Baking day
• 17h - 19h: On-site market selling bread and veggies
• Pizza for dinner!  Baked in the bread oven.
• After dinner:  Teaching and roundtable discussion with Benoit, mostly on the political, economic, non-violent, and religious philosophies and theologies of The Ark of Lonza del Vasto.

Tuesday

• Before lunch: Well-being check-in and community logistics meeting
• After lunch: We gather to practice singing stunningly beautiful songs from l'Arche's rich music culture, or songs for an upcoming festival.

Wednesday

• Rachel Sarah: Garden day
• After the work day ends: Corporal Movements with Elisabeth (yoga-like exercises and meditation, with each movement symbolizing the human being's relationship with God)

Thursday

• Morning: Farmer's Market in Pont l'Abbé (one person runs l'Arche's stand, usually Elisabeth)
• Building day - this day is very exciting!  All hands are on deck for building projects and a lot is accomplished!

Friday

• Nico: Baking day
• No communal lunch: we follow the ancient Christian tradition to fast breakfast and lunch each Friday in rememberance of the crucifixion.  Dinner is a simple meal of rice and lentils.
• 17h - 19h: On-site market selling bread and veggies

Moisés & Yanni Schedule

Our family's schedule has never been so regular and predictable.  We have enjoyed how tight and reliable the community's rhythms are.  The morning routine listed here is our goal, which is getting accomplished more and more often!

Monday through Saturday

5h > (Monday, Friday) Nico begins bakery work; (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday) Nico or Rachel Sarah leaves for personal time to read or write letters or update a blog! :)

6h15 - 7h15 > Boil two kettles of water (one for a bath and the other for tea and dishes), bathe Moisés and Yanni, work through morning chores, make breakfast 

7h > Whoever left for personal time returns to join the fray

7h15 > Morning prayers, reading and discussing a few of the daily scriptures we'll hear later in French 

7h45 > Breakfast

8h15 > Clean up breakfast and finish morning chores; Nico or Rachel Sarah gets ready to begin communal work at 8h30

On a morning walk down an old, old road.

8h45 > Go outside to walk in the woods or play until 9h30 prayers

Late morning > Homeschool activities or crafts and free play.  We do our own Tiempo Quieto ("still time") during the community's 12h30 meditation and then join them for lunch.

Afternoon: Nap and free play, sometimes Moisés joins Papa for work between naptime and dinner 

18h > Dinner 

19h > Clean up dinner and begin bedtime routine 

20h > Hopefully kids are sleeping 

21h30 > Hopefully parents are sleeping

Christmas & New Year's - In photos!

We made snowflakes to decorate our windows, but only because it's fun to
cut out snow flakes.  It's actually very rare that there would be snow here.

Here's our advent calendar (some of you might recognize!) strung up over
homemade ornaments we dried in the bread oven.  Because of the humidity
here the ornaments re-hydrated, which we only found out because a couple
of them stretched and fell off the line...!

A candle in our house is not something to take note of... unless the flame
has been brought by foot and train all the way from Bethlehem!

David (dah-VEED) put together a Christmas pagent for the
community and asked Nico and I to be Joseph and Mary.
But since our French isn't good enough to read and
memorize a handful of poetic lines, others read for us.

Cast and crew of the pagent - this group is about half the total number of people
present.  Left to right: Nico, Me, Elisabeth, Katell, Marion (voice of Mary),
David (voice of Joseph), Hervé, Amos, Benoit

This is the common room and community kitchen where all our meals and many
of our gatherings happen.  Yanni sat happily and quietly in Christiane's lap
during the performance!  :)  After the pagent, we enjoyed cookies and chocolates
and homemade brioche.  Yes, Nico made it and now knows the recipe!

Family hike on Christmas morning in the woods behind our house!
Note: this is a forest in winter... not lacking any green!

This Christmas tune has been stuck in our heads ever since... it's catchy!
The bass line is "lum lum lum", but we were singing it before dessert, so
Benoit began singing, "yum yum yum", which was kept up for the entire song.
Sorry, I'm not really sure why it's so blurry.

I made a pumpkin pie for one of our Saturday night communal
dinners, and they asked if I could make another one as a main
course for the Christmas meal.  As pumpkin pie is not a normal
thing to find in France, why not main course instead of dessert?
As you can see, it wasn't nearly as popular as the usual dishes.
From top to bottom: mushroom pie (90% gobbled), root veggie pie
(90% gobbled), pumpkin pie (90% present), leek pie (100% gobbled).

On New Year's Eve, we trodded over to a nearby field on the farm's property
to visit some newly born baby lambs!  A shepherd who doesn't have land of
his own trades wool to l'Arche to use their fields as part of a rotation.

Two babies with the mama!

Nico and Moses try to herd the sheep to the pile of food we brought.

Flowers in winter!

Our New Year's Eve festivities got out of hand!
Christiane (left) was stacking these blocks a foot or so
high for Yanni to knock down, and when he moved on,
somehow a challenge arose and she and Paul (a visitor)
used every block to build a tower up to the ceiling.

Happy New Year!